From Peter Orvetti at Green Party Watch:
U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Story ruled Thursday that Georgia’s requirement that political organizations seeking to put a presidential candidate’s name on a statewide ballot have to get signatures from one percent of registered voters is unconstitutional.
The Green Party of Georgia and the Constitution Party of Georgia has filed suit against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp over the requirement, which in 2012 required 50,334 signatures for presidential ballot access. Story ruled that a presidential candidate must submit 7,500 signatures on a petition that otherwise complies with state law to be put on the ballot.
Georgia Green Party co-chair Bruce Dixon said, “You can’t vote for an antiwar candidate, a peace and justice candidate if state laws keep peace and justice candidates off the ballot. You can’t vote for a candidate opposing Common Core and school privatization, if those are not allowed on the ballot. Up till now, Georgia’s Democrats and Republicans have colluded to restrict the choices of voters by keeping other parties and candidates off the ballot.”
Ballot access should be the same for all candidates, regardless of party. It should be based on public support for a candidate, not a party. If the Democrat and Republican Party candidates require X number of petition signatures then every other candidate should require the same number of signatures and let the candidate declare their party preference regardless of if that party has ballot access or not.
Better than Pennsylvania, where a judge struck down the petitioning requirements and the SoS is just ignoring it.
The same happened in Illinois not too long ago and now the state board of elections appears to be filing an appeal – or at least that’s what the Libertarian Party of Illinois’ lawyer told the executive board prior to the state convention.
Hopefully for Georgia, the secretary of state won’t put up a fight in regards to an appeal on their end. But it never seems that way, but for the time being, this is great news!